Did you find an error?
let us know
Joe Klamar I Agence France Presse
Follow the Bio Bio Sports Fanpage
Small teams isolated from each other, indispensable masks, virtual press conferences … the Formula 1 meets from Friday in Austria in its first grand prix of 2020 and the coronavirus era, with an uncertain sports and development result.
Among the first major international competitions to resume, the premier category of motor sport is known to be scrutinized.
He has tried not to leave anything to chance by editing a code of conduct to which all who have access to the Red Bull Ring, in the mountains of Styria, in the center of the country, must adhere this weekend and the next, in a second great prize.
In this health protocol, participants will be monitored every five days and unnecessary contacts will be limited to the maximum, to avoid cancellation due to contamination, as in March in Australia, or a series of positives as in the Adria Tour of tennis player Novak Djokovic in June.
Viewers will discover a ghost paddock and empty grandstands from Friday to Sunday, when the test is held behind closed doors.
“We will have to try to put on a show” on the track, says Dutchman Max Verstappen, whose Red Bull team plays at home.
“Unprecedented scenario”
“The first race of the season is often chaotic and that’s when the opportunities arise,” recalls Alfa Romeo’s core team, Frédéric Vasseur.
There is no security of the state of the teams. Mercedes dominated the winter trials in February, ahead of Red Bull, and then Ferrari and the rest.
But on Saturday in the qualifications the status of each will be known.
Some teams, such as Mercedes, Red Bull or Renault, will roll their evolved cars, while Ferrari will wait for the third grand prize, in Hungary, in two weeks.
The unpublished format of this season also brings its lot of potential surprises.
The first ten races canceled or postponed, as well as Singapore and Japan afterwards, will make the championship shorter than the 22 tests originally scheduled. Eight were officialized in Europe until September and F1 hopes to organize between 15 and 18 in total until mid-December.
“We do not even know how many races we are going to do, it is an unprecedented scenario, so each point will be crucial,” sums up the Spanish Carlos Sainz Junior, who will leave McLaren for Ferrari in 2021.
With fewer occasions to correct mistakes, it will take reliable cars and prudent drivers, but also audacity not to miss the chances.
“More pressure”
A challenge is presented in this way in the Red Bull Ring, short circuit (4,318 km) and with trap curves that require “being very precise”, says the Mexican Sergio Pérez (Racing Point), for whom “there is more pressure than usual in one lap ”.
Technically, it is also necessary to take into account the loss of aerodynamic supports and the cooling problems posed by the altitude (677 m).
Often dominating other circuits, the Silver Arrows have not stood out in recent years on the Austrian circuit (double drop in 2018, third and fifth places in 2019), when Red Bull and Verstappen achieved two consecutive victories.
If they achieve a third victory, and a fourth a week later, that could change the appearance of a discipline dominated by Mercedes since 2014.
This time the color of the German cars will be black, in support of the anti-racism movement “Black Lives Matter”, with one of those two cars driven by the British Lewis Hamilton, which would equal the legendary German driver Michael Schumacher if he won a seventh title world at the end of the season.
F1 has adorned the paddock with cars in the colors of the rainbow and the motto “We race as one” to greet the struggles against COVID-19 and against discrimination.
“Winning the title this year would make even more sense” than any other, Hamilton estimated due to this context of pandemic and the fight against racism.
.
